Red River Preserve Project Gets No Show of Support from County Commissioners

By DALE GRAHAM

The Cheatham County Commission met in regular session on Monday of this week. David Davidson and LuAnn Engelman were absent.

Danny Schaeffer was approved as the new Director of Emergency Services, effective September 1st. He replaces James Gupton who has taken a job in Nashville.

In spite of months of work and discussion by Mayor David McCullough and former ECD Director James Fenton, the county commission may have closed the door on a deal to partner with Robertson County for the purpose of building an 1100 acre office park off of I24 in the north end of the county. The item before them was the approval of $32,500 from the Capital Projects budget to fund development of a business plan and model, cover attorney and engineering fees, zoning overlay study and contingency funds.

The rules needed to be suspended because the item had not made it to the capital improvements committee, and it needed to be discussed and decided on quickly, “because Robertson County is continuing to ask where are we as a county? Are we going to do something or not?”, Mayor McCullough explained. “They would like to have some type of response, and I think this would, either way, whether it’s yes or no, it’s going to demonstrate to them where Cheatham County stands.”

Also at the meeting, McCarver brought forth a motion to create a committee to oversee the new Veteran’s Service officer, a position which was approved last month to help local veterans with issues they may need help with. The 7 member committee would oversee the part-time officer, and report and advise the commission. Mayor McCullough expressed his opinion that the idea was “inappropriate according to the TN Constitution”, adding that it will only serve to “slow down government”, and that the move was “another form of micro-managing”. The department and it’s employee were under the direct supervision of the county mayor, but after the motion to approve was passed by a vote of 8 yes (Haines, Sanders, Ramsey, Jordan, Weakley, Hedgepath, Jarreau and McCarver) to 2 no, (Wood, Myers), McCullough handed over his file and all authority over the position to the commission.

McCullough stated that he “took 2 oaths, 1 to abide the TN Constitution, and 2 to abide by the Federal”. He added that “it’s about doing what’s right, and what I swore to do when I took this office”.

Also at the meeting: The commission approved a resolution naming September, 2012 “Suicide Prevention Month”.

The commission approved a fireworks ban that will go in conjunction with a state mandated Burn Ban.

The Cheatham County Commission meets the 3rd Monday of each month at 7p.m. in the General Sessions courtroom in Ashland City. The public is invited to attend. Each meeting begins with a public forum, where attendees are allowed to speak.

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2 Responses to Red River Preserve Project Gets No Show of Support from County Commissioners

Zack–It gets even worse (if that’s possible) the vote the have a 7 person committe oversee a part time veterans problem solver is also a potential bottleneck. Cheatham county was one of the last TN counties to have a veterans representative. Really on the move. Yea right!

Oh, I think we showed Robertson County where we stand. The key word is “stand”. One of Webster’s definitions of that word is “…to stop or remain motionless.” Yep, that is how some commissioners want our County – remain motionless. To maybe help me channel some of their thoughts on understanding this, to look at Webster’s, I even used my hardback dictionary vs. the online version.

The sad part is that the majority of the commissioners in attendance voted for it, but it failed for the lack of the required seven votes. Ironically, two commissioners were absent for this important vote. Wonder where they would have “stood”.

Bottom line – this county has to have more revenue if we are to properly fund our schools and infrastructure. We didn’t even want to spend some money to find out what could have been.